


The Fortunate Ones

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Lots of Sex, M/M, Sex, also lots of sarcasm, and maybe feelings, more tags and characters as they appear, sugardaddy au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-08 15:29:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11084505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Noctis is celebrating his last night of freedom before he has to go back home and admit to his father that he's broke as hell and ready to sell his soul for that political marriage after all.Then he meets Gladiolus Amicitia, and everything changes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I initially wrote this for the kinkmeme back in January or so, but I've changed it up over the last few months!

It isn’t that Noct has no skills. He can read passably in ancient Solheim. He knows more about science fiction as a genre than most professors know about the cosmic prophecies. He has a fondness for math and can probably still take anyone in fencing, and his talent towards self-destruction is an art that he has spent nearly ten years perfecting. The problem is, none of these skills are what one would call marketable when they’re wrapped up in the prodigal son of Insomnia’s beloved President Regis Lucis Caelum.

Which is why he’s here, in the Eos Bar on 88th street, spending the last of his cash before he has to ruin what remains of his pride in the morning.

“This is it, Prompto,” he says. “It was nice knowing you.”

“Dude, you aren’t dying,” says Prompto, his best friend of five years and the only bulwark against Noct’s lack of self preservation. “You’re just _talking_ to him.”

“Yes,” Noct says, meaningly. “To my dad. Who wants me, and I quote, to _Get this nonsense out of your system before your marriage to Lunafreya._ Who! May I add!” He smacks his hand on the table, making their glasses jump. “Is the biggest. Fucking. Lesbian. In Tenebrae.”

“You told me that,” Prompto says. “Fifteen times. Look, if it’s that bad, dude, just ask Cindy for your job back.”

“Not likely,” says Noct. “You remember what I did to her grandpa’s car.” There’s a moment of silence as they both consider this, and Prompto nods. “No, tomorrow, I’m going to crawl back into the loving arms of Regis Lucis Caelum the five millionth and sixty third and say, You know that whole bisexuality thing? Just a phase! Welcome me home, Dad, I’m dead inside!”

“You are such a dramatic shit, man.” Prompto lifts his glass to Noct’s and cheers him. “You need to escape, text me, okay? I’m not gonna let my best friend ruin his life just because he’s broke.”

“I’m not broke, Prom. I’m beyond broke. I’ve walked through the land of Broke and come out the other side into the city of Oh God, I’m Fucked, and let me tell you, it’s a fucking adventure.”

Noct downs his beer and winces. 

“Come on, bro.” Prompto drags him to his feet. “Let’s dance. You never know, maybe it’s your lucky day, and some hot dude has a thing for scrawny, emo rich kids.”

“Not a rich kid,” Noct protests, but he follows Prompto anyway. The dance floor is a mess, full of young straight women from yet another bridal party, and Noct and Prompto hang out at the fringes and try not to let the other one know how bored they are.

That’s when Noct sees him. 

“Shit,” he says. “Prompto, it’s Ardyn.”

“Oh, fuck.” Prompto looks up, sees the auburn-haired spectre of bad hookups past making a beeline towards them, and does the only thing that a well-meaning best friend can think of: He shoves Noct bodily into the crowd beside him. 

Noct stumbles over his heavy boots and grabs onto the nearest arm for balance. He’s swung round to face what looks like a veritable mountain of muscle and blue-grey tattoos, and looks up into amber eyes that widen in good-natured surprise.

“Noct?” The voice he hears from the left of the crowd drips with smug amusement. “Is that you?”

“What do you mean?” Prompto’s voice is too high. “I don’t see him! He isn’t here!”

Noct looks up at the man he’s still holding by the arms, and over at the flash of grey and green cloth that is definitely Ardyn pushing through the crowd. He wonders how long he’d have to wait in jail for starting a fight in one of Insomnia’s most prestigious gay bars. 

“Hey.” The man he’s clinging to smiles wryly. “Need to get out?”

“Maybe,” Noct says, through gritted teeth. The man raises his eyebrows, and the next thing he knows, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Tattooed is guiding him through the thick of the bachelorette party, an arm round his waist.

“Sorry,” he says, when they break into empty space on the other side of the floor. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Noct says. “Just really bad decisions coming back to haunt me.”

“I know how that goes.” The man grins, and gestures to the bar. “I’m Gladio. Want to grab a drink? On me.”

Noct hesitates, then what shreds of his reservation that remains give way as Gladio smiles, amber eyes going dark. Oh, what the hell. There are worse ways to spend a last night of freedom.

 

\---

 

After all the times Prompto has ditched Noct halfway through a bar crawl, Noct doesn’t feel that bad about finally having his turn. Besides, Gladio—Gladio Amicitia, head of Something-Something Security and Something (He wasn’t really paying attention)—is genuinely nice, for someone who definitely just wants a one-night-stand with a guy he can probably break in half. He has a depth for sarcasm that even Noct can appreciate, a tendency to rescue strangers from objectionable exes, and thighs that feel like solid rock. Alright, that last part has nothing to do with how nice he is, but it is definitely an important factor. So Noct finds himself leaning against him as they walk to Gladio’s car, which is waiting outside with the engine running—

“Hell,” Noct says. “You have a driver?”

“Better than a taxi,” Gladio says. “Come on.”

The inside of the car is nice, and the leather seats remind Noct distressingly of his father’s favorite vintage model, before Gladio’s hand is on his thigh and his tongue is parting his lips, and honestly, who gives a fuck about leather anyways?

He isn’t sure how they make it to the top of Gladio’s penthouse apartment. Noct is a careful drinker, and he can already feel the buzz wearing off on the way up to the apartment, so when he’s let in, he stops to text Prompto a hurried apology and assurance that no, he wasn’t about to fall into the arms of Ardyn 2.0. Probably. What little of the apartment he can see doesn’t look like it comes from the pages of _Potential Serial Killers Monthly,_ and Gladio hasn’t mentioned whips or chains once, which is definitely a step in the right direction. 

Prompto sends him a selfie, complete with a harried-looking Ignis in the background. Well, at least Prompto found a way home. Noct puts his phone away, and looks up to see Gladio standing at the door to a room across the hall, checking his own cell. 

“C’mere,” Gladio says, and Noct obeys, lifting himself onto his toes to get a better grip on Gladio’s thick brown hair. The phone drops to the carpet, and Noct feels Gladio’s large hands grip his ass, dragging him up. He wraps his legs around Gladio’s waist, and the two of them stagger into the dark room beyond.

Noct knows that technically, they’re both supposedly clean, but he is still relieved when, halfway through divesting each other of their clothes, Gladio fumbles in the bedside table for condoms. 

He expects Gladio to be larger than normal, and isn’t disappointed, but what he hasn’t planned for is how _gentle_ the man can be. Gladio spends a good amount of time just kissing him, exploring his body, brushing calloused hands over his nipples and running his lips along sensitive places that even Noct hasn’t bothered to consider. Noct can be, in the words of former lovers, a needy little shit sometimes, but this treatment is almost soothing, keeping him on the edge of pleasure without tipping over into discomfort. 

“You’re beautiful,” Gladio says. Noct flushes—he’s no good at taking compliments—and Gladio grins. “You ready?”

“Yeah. Yes, just do it.”

“As you wish, princess,” Gladio says. Noct scowls, but it doesn’t sound like an insult, and suddenly he can hear the click of a bottle cap and Gladio’s fingers brush along his back and oh, oh god— 

“Relax,” Gladio says, and Noct takes a long breath as Gladio presses a finger in to the second knuckle. He squirms against it, desperate for more, and Gladio laughs a little and traces a tongue over Noct’s left nipple as he pushes a second finger in and crooks it just so. Noct reaches for his own erection, but Gladio pushes his hand away, and he whines.

“That’s a nice sound.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“You want me to stop?” Gladio looks at him seriously, and Noct shakes his head. 

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

By the end of the night, Noct is pushed up against the headboard with one hand clutched on the brasswork while he frantically jerks off with the other, trying to match Gladio’s relentless pace as the larger man thrusts into him. This is hardly gentle, but it’s overwhelmingly _good_. Noct comes first, and his hand slips from the headboard as he slumps onto the pillows. Gladio slows and gently rubs his back, but Noct tries to push against him, urging him to keep going, so he holds him up by the hips and pounds into him so fiercely that Noct is pushed forward on the soft sheets. He keeps going even as he comes, and finally stills, running his hands over Noct’s trembling thighs. 

“Fuck,” he says. “That’s—Noct? Noct, are you okay?” He pulls out a little too quickly, and Noct winces, but he doesn’t understand the sudden concern. It isn’t until Gladio’s hands touch Noct’s cheeks that he realizes, and he laughs. 

“Oh, no,” he says. “I, uh, this is embarrassing, but I’m—“

“Didn’t take you for a crier,” Gladio says, with a sigh of deep relief. “Was it too much?” He sits back and removes his condom, then ties it and clambers off the bed. 

“Not too much,” Noct assures him, and rolls onto his side. “Hey, come back.” He knows he’s whining, but he doesn’t care. Gladio returns from the other end of the room and pulls him into his arms. 

They kiss slow after that, and Gladio asks him if he’s in college, how come he was on the run from an ex who looked at least twice his age, what plans he has for the future. Noct stumbles through it, painfully aware that he has no plans other than to go home and beg forgiveness for the crime of trying to exist on his own terms for a while.

Gladio isn’t very pleased with that.

“Honestly?” he says, “That has to be the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”

“I didn’t say it was a good plan,” Noct admits. “It’s the only plan. I’m getting evicted in two weeks, and Prompto isn’t allowed to have any more hangers-on at his place.”

“So you’re going to lie? Get married to a girl you don’t like?”

“I like her fine,” Noct says, a little defensive. “Just not like that. And trust me, the feeling’s mutual.” He groans. “This is depressing. So what’s your story? You do this often? No offense, but you don’t seem like the pick-up type.”

“I don’t really have time for serious relationships,” Gladio says. “But no, I’m not into random hook-ups, either. This was a… rare case.”

“Huh. Should I be flattered?”

“Easy on the ego.” Gladio smacks him on the ass, and Noct pulls a face that makes the other man laugh. “I guess. Look. Don’t go to your dad’s tomorrow.”

“Don’t have much choice.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but I have experience in this kind of thing.” Gladio runs a hand up Noct’s cheek and brushes a thumb under his eye. “Take a day to think about it. You can stay here, if you want—I have to go to work in the morning, but it won’t be a problem.”

Noct looks around at the bedroom, so well furnished that it would put even his room at home to shame. “I don’t know…”

“I’ll bring you something back from Rosa’s. It’s a patisserie on 45th and Weston. Tiny iced cakes the size of your finger. Come on.”

Noct laughs. “Are you _bribing_ me?”

“If it stops you from running headfirst into a miserable situation, sure.” Gladio presses his lips to Noct’s neck and bites down, making him gasp. “And if you’re up for a repeat of tonight, I won’t say no…”

Noct runs his hands over the feathers of the tattoo on Gladio’s back and thinks about it. “Alright,” he says, at last. “Just for tomorrow. Still not sure why you even care, though.”

Gladio chuckles against the curve of Noct’s shoulder, raising goosebumps on his skin. “Let’s just say I’m a soft touch for hopeless cases,” he says, and sits up to pull Noct into a crushing kiss, full of promise.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, Noct wakes alone in Gladio’s enormous bed, curled up on his side with most of the blankets tangled between his legs. He scrambles up to his arms, startled by the strangeness of waking up in an unfamiliar bed, and catches sight of a tray on the bedside table. It bears what looks like the flakiest, lightest chocolate croissant known to man, a glass of juice, and some sort of fruit bowl that Noct is perfectly happy to ignore. There is a note, too, tucked next to a pitcher of coffee:

_You sleep like the dead. Feel free to do whatever, just don’t break shit or set anything on fire._

_P.S. Don’t visit your dad. There’s cake in it for you._

_-G_

“Romantic,” Noct says dryly, and gets to work on decimating the croissant. 

It’s already past noon, so Noct puts on his old clothes and walks out into the living room. Most of the walls are stacked high with bookshelves, though there’s a massive TV and at least three video game consoles crammed inside the entertainment center. There’s another room leading off through the gap in two bookcases, and Noct grimaces at the sight of what looks like a small gym. Well, Gladio has to keep his muscles toned somehow. Noct makes his way to the bathroom instead, and has to take about three seconds to think it over before immediately turning on the tap in the bath.

The tub is enormous—big enough to fit three people. Or one person and Gladio, Noct thinks, and shivers a little at the implication. He sinks into the bath with a groan of pleasure. How long has it been since he didn’t have to huddle directly under the showerhead and hope that the water hadn’t been turned off again? He soaks for a good hour, and leaves his clothes in an unruly pile at the door. 

When Gladio comes back in the mid-afternoon, Noct is wearing boxers and one of Gladio’s softest cotton shirts, and is curled up on the couch with a growing collection of abandoned books scattered around him.

“You stayed,” Gladio says, in a slightly baffled tone. Noct lifts his head.

“Didn’t feel like a walk of shame,” he says. “Not that I have any.”

“I noticed,” Gladio replies, with a pointed look at Noct’s legs. Noct stretches them out, propping his bare feet on the arm of the couch, and grins at how the other man has to tear his gaze away. “I brought you cake. Consider it a Congrats, You Aren’t Going Back in the Closet gift.”

“You’re the most thoughtful one night stand a guy could have,” Noct says. “But I am going back. Evicted in two weeks, remember?” He rolls off the couch and heads over to the counter, where Gladio has set down a bag that radiates with the aura of potential cakehood. 

“About that.” Gladio lifts a paper box out of the bag, not quite meeting Noct’s eyes. “I thought, maybe. Do you want to do this again?”

“Cake? Yes, thank you.”

“Brat.” Gladio pushes the box into Noct’s hands and starts undoing his tie. He looks larger in a suit, and the finely tailored cloth makes his shoulders impossibly broad. “I was thinking dinner tomorrow night. If you don’t have anything planned.”

Noct speaks through a mouthful of icing. “Other than seeing my dad…”

“Don’t.” Gladio’s voice is firm. “Come to dinner instead.”

Noct has probably ruined the dramatic effect of this statement by shoving another tiny cake in his mouth, but really, he hasn’t had a dessert that didn’t come from a grocery store bakery in over two years. Even the possibility of another night of mind-blowing sex isn’t enough to deter him from the truly important things in life. 

“Sure,” he says, when he can breathe through his mouth again. “Twist my arm.”

At noon the next day, Noct is roused by a hammering at his door. He drags his sorry ass off his air mattress and answers in nothing but his sweatpants and a Moogle Chocobo Carnival shirt, and is barely aware that he even signed for a package before he’s dragging a cardboard box onto the other box that serves as his table. He looks at the address, but it doesn’t seem familiar. Yawning, he opens the box to find—

Clothes?

He lifts out a black dress shirt wrapped in protective plastic, with the faintest motif of skulls around the hem. Under that are a pair of pants of the kind of soft fabric Noct hasn’t worn in years, and still under that is a fine black jacket with a card tucked into the front pocket. Noct pulls out the card and squints at it. 

_For dinner tonight. Hope I guessed your size right. – G_

“Man,” Noct says, looking down at the fortune in clothing on his impromptu table. “If you can buy me this, pay my fucking _rent._ ” He isn’t mad about it, though, which should be worrying. He looks at the clock. Six hours until the dinner. Date. Whatever it is. Plenty of time to go back to bed for an hour or three.

Noct, of course, ends up running thirty minutes late. He shows up at the restaurant—one of those bougie deals with waitstaff who are trained to make unwashed scrublords like Noct feel two inches high—wearing the clothes Gladio sent him with a bit of trepidation. They fit well, but he wonders what exactly he’s getting into with this. 

He doesn’t have to wonder long.

“Wait,” he says, thirty minutes into the meal. “So you’re saying, you want me to… live with you.”

“If you’re into it,” Gladio says.

“Like a sort of… house-sitter with benefits?”

“If you _want_ the benefits, sure. You don’t have to move back in with your dad or worry about bills for a while, and I get, you know.”

“Me?” Noct asks, through a mouth full of fried dough. Gladio winces.

“Not like that. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. It’s just…” he sighs. “Empty, even when I’m not on a trip out of town, and you’re nice, so I thought…”

“I get it.” Noct carefully separates the broccoli from his fish. “But you should probably know. My last name’s Caelum. You know, like Regis Caelum.”

He waits for this to kick in. It takes about half a second. Before Gladio’s face can go from the ashen grey of shock to the mottled tan and pink of anger, Noct shoves a pile of fish and rice into his mouth. 

“Like the president,” Gladio says, numbly. Noct points to his full mouth. “You have to swallow that sometime. Really?” He runs a hand through his hair.

“Don’t believe me?” Noct mumbles, through the rice. Gladio stares off into the distance.

“No, I believe you,” he says. “At least I know I’m not gonna be followed by his secret police any time soon.”

“Yeah?” Noct is regretting the Stuff Your Face method of evasion. He manages to choke down what he can and lunges for his water glass. “Why do you think?”

“I told you yesterday,” he says. “It’s my job. I’m head of the security company that employs his guards. Holy shit, I even sent guards to follow _you_.”

“Thanks for that,” Noct says, deadpan. “Then you know I’m the Citadel pariah right now. I’m pretty sure the tabloids have me sleeping with half of Niflheim. That gonna be a problem?”

Of course it would be. It’s always a problem. The only people who _don’t_ see it as a problem are those who see it as an opportunity to grease their way to the top, and when they find out Noct isn’t really in contact with his dad anymore, they drop him faster than he can blink. For Gladio, who has ties to his dad, the answer is simple. Noct braces for it, waits for the inevitable droop of the brow and sigh in his voice.

“Not really,” Gladio says, and Noct blinks at him. “I’ll have to clear it with your dad, first—“

“Or we can not,” Noct says. Gladio sighs. 

“I can always say you’re living in the building,” Gladio says, carefully, “but that’s gonna mean a lot of paperwork. And I gotta say, no offense, I didn’t take Caelum as the kind of guy to abandon his kid like that.”

“He didn’t abandon me,” Noct admits. “It’s less about the… gay thing… as it is about the Luna thing. I left on my own.” He tries to keep the eagerness out of his voice as he says, “But if I’m reading you right, here, we’re going back to your place after this, or…?”

Gladio’s answering grin is enough to send heat to Noct’s cheeks. “Yeah. Let me get the check.”

Noct manages to make it up three flights in the elevator to Gladio’s apartment before he starts undoing the larger man’s dress shirt. His own new clothes are a rumpled mess by the tenth floor, and he’s already half hard and panting for breath when they stagger out of the elevator and into the darkness of Gladio’s apartment. Noct scrambles to disrobe, and when Gladio pushes him down onto the large couch by the bookshelves, he’s shucking off his boxers without a second thought.

“What do you want, Noct?” Gladio asks. The light of the distant bedroom draws an outline around his naked form, and he stops just short of Noct as the younger man sprawls on the couch.

“We’re playing that game?” Noct smirks. “Where you ask me to say, _Oh, fuck me, Gladio, fuck me so good, I want your big, hard, monster cock in my—_ ” He cackles as Gladio climbs over him, grinning, and presses calloused fingers over his lips. 

“If you talk like that,” Gladio says, “I’m gonna rethink this whole arrangement. Which is what I’m talking about, and you know it.”

“Ask me _after_ you fuck my brains out,” Noct says, lips brushing against Gladio’s hands. “Be polite.”

“You won’t feel much like talking, then.”

Noct groans. “I’m here, aren’t I? Isn’t that answer enough?” Gladio removes his hand and looks down on him sternly. “Yes. Alright. Let’s give it a shot. Just a few weeks to start with, right?”

“Right,” Gladio says, and presses his body flush to Noct’s. “Now, let’s see if I can make you beg, after all.”

He can, and he does.

“Don’t have to push it, princess,” Gladio says around midnight, as Noct climbs onto him, eyes glassy with the aftermath of release. Noct gathers enough muster to glare as he heaves himself onto the larger man’s lap. Gladio’s cock, painfully hard, brushes against Noct's as he settles down. Noct reaches down to slick him with lube, and closes his eyes at Gladio’s hiss at the touch.

“Thanks,” Noct says, and his voice oozes sarcasm. He lifts himself up, holding onto Gladio’s shoulder for support, and kisses him softly before he guides himself down onto Gladio’s length. He moves excruciatingly slow, and presses his forehead to Gladio’s.

“You’re doing great,” Gladio says, and Noct kisses the side of his jaw under the ear. “Noct, you’re fucking gorgeous.”

“Shut _up,_ ” Noct says, and Gladio can feel the heat in his cheeks. He has taken Gladio’s full length, now, and he takes a moment to adjust before he starts to ride him in quick, shallow movements. Gladio tilts his head back, and Noct grabs his hair and pulls him forward into a rough kiss.

Except it’s not enough, and Gladio’s hands grip him at the hips and he practically bucks up into him as Noct takes him to the hilt. Noct leaves off even trying to concentrate on anything but the drag and spike of pleasure as Gladio fucks him, and leans his head on the older man’s shoulder. He fumbles to jerk himself off, but his movement is erratic, and Gladio lets Noct take over as he reaches between them to bring him into what turns out to be the second of many orgasms of the night. Gladio comes right after, and Noct takes a moment to steady his breathing before he slowly disengages from his lap.

“Right,” Noct says, flopping boneless onto the couch at Gladio’s side. “I can definitely live with this.”

 

\---

 

“Dude,” Prompto says, as Noct shoves his worn collection of comic books into a box. 

“Dude,” he says, when Noct opens the pantry, sees the haven of bugs that have taken residence near the half-open chip bags, and closes it again. 

“ _Dude,_ ” he says, while Noct throws most of his clothes into a garbage bag for easier storage. Prompto perches on Noct’s air mattress and cracks open his third beer of the afternoon. By the look in his eyes, Noct has a suspicion he feels like he needs it.

“Look, man, if you aren’t gonna help, go home.” Noct shoves his tenth black shirt into the bag and gets to work on bundling up his underwear. He wonders if Gladio’s going to pay for a new wardrobe, and then, after a minute of contemplation, wonders if he should feel guilty about _wanting_ that.

Prompto starts half-heartedly packing up the contents of Noct’s bookshelf. “I dunno,” he says. “You’re moving in with a guy you just met.”

“Yeah.”

“And he wants to, what, pay all your bills?”

“I guess?” Noct pushes down on the bag of clothes to make more room. “I mean, he can afford it.”

“Slippery slope, bro.” Prompto takes care to line up the books in some semblance of order. “What if he wants to keep you as like, a trophy wife? Husband? Trophy dude?”

Noct shrugs. “I dunno, Dad would have him killed, probably. Besides, he says I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to. We can just be roommates if I want. Which I don’t, because…” He gestures towards his nonexistent abs and winks.

Prompto says nothing, but he slaps down Noct’s books with a little more force than usual. They work through the bedroom in an awkward silence for a while before Prompto groans, pushes his box aside, and snatches up Noct’s phone from the bed.

“Hey, what the hell, Prom?”

“Shut up, Noct.” Prompto swipes through Noct’s password and starts typing quickly. “I’m downloading this app, right? If you touch a button, it sends an alarm to one of your emergency contacts. I heard about it from Iggy.”

Noct rolls his eyes. “Of course you did.”

“At least we _knew_ that _Ardyn_ was shady,” Prompto mutters, and Noct glowers at him. “It’s true! I don’t know this guy, Noct.”

“If it helps, he’s kind of my dad’s head of security.”

Prompto looks at Noct. He drops Noct’s phone back on the bed and slowly walks out of the room. Noct can hear his footfalls over the worn boards of the living room, a squeak of springs, and then a long, muffled scream. 

“That couch is _full_ of spiders, Prompto,” Noct says, poking his head round the door. Prompto lifts his face from the couch pillow and rolls to the floor with a miserable thud. When it looks like he isn’t going to move any time soon, Noct shrugs again, ducks back into his room, and empties out his sock drawer.

 

When Noct moves in to Gladio’s apartment the next day, both Ignis and Prompto insist on coming with him. Ignis is in what he thinks of as casual wear, which still makes him look as though he just stepped out of a department store ad full of wholesome twenty-something businessmen. Prompto, meanwhile, has doubled-down on his usual punk look, hunching his muscular shoulders in a denim vest studded with metal spikes and band patches. Gladio waves them in without a second look, but Prompto lingers at the doorway.

Noct knows that Prompto has a _type,_ and Gladio, with his soft smile, broad shoulders, ridiculously toned abs and a runner’s thighs, is pretty much the textbook definition. Noct can see Prompto struggle between knee-jerk attraction and scorn. He ends up looking like he just stepped on something painful instead, and Gladio rushes in to take the box of books from his arms.

“I could’ve helped you move your stuff up here,” he says. Noct shakes his head.

“Nah, this is it.”

Gladio looks from the box in his arms to the bags dangling from Noct and Ignis’ shoulders, but his expression is carefully bland. “That works. There are two empty rooms. I use one as an office, but I cleared out the bigger one yesterday…”

“ _We_ could’ve helped _you_ with that,” Prompto says, following at Gladio, Ignis, and Noct’s heels, “But I was out on the shooting range. You know. With my guns.”

Gladio hefts the box and smiles at Prompto. “Yeah? We have a shooting range at the Citadel.”

“Mine’s a lot closer,” Prompto says. Ignis suppresses what sounds suspiciously like a snort.

“Oh my god.” Noct shoves open the door Gladio has indicated to him and throws down his bags. “Hey, look, a room!”

 

Ignis warns Noct, as Prompto drags a highly amused Gladio into a corner to explain all the ways he knows how to conceivably kill a man, that the first week is probably going to be awkward. “It took me months to get used to Prompto,” he points out. Noct, who had to slog through two sets of increasingly aggravated texts about Ignis’ tendency to fold his socks and Prompto inability to operate a dishwasher, nods. 

“Yeah, but that was normal roommate stuff,” he says. “It’s not like you were fucking.”

Ignis lifts a stack of books and starts arranging them on Noct’s new shelf in alphabetical order by author.

“Iggy,” Noct says, panic rising in his gut. “You _weren’t,_ right?”

“I’d hardly call that appropriate behavior, Noctis,” Ignis says. “We barely knew one another at the time.” His face is turned aside so Noct can’t see his eyes, but that’s fine. It’s fine. Even if he _did_ kind of not exactly say _no._

And damn if Ignis isn’t right. By the time Ignis drags Prompto, still trying to give Gladio thinly-veiled threats, out the door and down the hall, Noct and Gladio are standing on either side of the main entranceway like kids at a school dance, trying not to look each other in the eye. 

“Takeout?” Gladio says, at last. 

“Fuck, yes.”

So they spend the first night crowded up on the couch, eating noodles out of paper cartons while they watch Children of the Advent, a movie of Noct’s about three brothers who keep getting their lives ruined by some guy on a motorcycle. At one point, they get into a heated argument over the merits of having one sword that can turn into at least six other, smaller swords, and Gladio rips open the unused plastic cutlery to demonstrate. Noct ends up dragging himself to bed late in the evening, and passes out without even bothering to unpack his sheets.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting to know you....

The two week trial passes before Noct can rouse himself to do his first load of laundry. By this point, Gladio has commented on the fact that Noct has worn the same shirt three days in a row, so Noct takes advantage of the high windows of the apartment and strips down to his boxers in the laundry closet. Gladio finds him sprawled out on the floor with his legs propped up on the couch, playing a game on his phone as the washing machine rattles and hums.

“Two weeks already,” Gladio says, adjusting his tie for the third time. Noct’s feet tap against the couch cushions.

“Seems like.”

The washing machine makes a sound like a behemoth rising from the depths. Noct looks to Gladio, blue eyes half-lidded, hair curling out of its carefully gelled spikes. He watches the rise and fall of Gladio’s chest, the way his throat tightens as he swallows.

“You thinkin’ chicken tonight?” Gladio asks.

“Sure.”

Noct waits until the elevator dings before he drops his phone, scrambles to his feet, and sneaks into Gladio’s room.

It’s not that he isn’t welcome there—Gods know he’s become intimately acquainted with almost every inch of Gladio’s bedroom, whether by virtue of fucking Gladio against the walls three nights ago or the time they practically staggered around the room while Noct tried to climb the larger man like a goddamn tree. But while Noct has learned a lot about what makes Gladio scream into his knuckles and collapse in a mess of mindless cursing, he hasn’t learned much about, well, _Gladio._

So he stops at the wall of bookshelves at the far end of Gladio’s bedroom and searches for the volumes with spines so creased and bent that the words are barely visible. There’s a whole three rows of what seem to be books about knights, kings, and wizards, and Noct pulls out a book that’s well-loved enough to be made soft, almost cloth-like in his hands. 

“ _The Book of Three,_ ” he says, and lies out on the floor to read.

He’s almost done when his alarm rings, and Noct considers cutting his losses and putting his phone on silent. But then the image of Ignis’ disappointed scowl rises to his mind, and he reluctantly puts the book away. Ignis is sticking his neck out for Noct by getting him a job as a part time page at the library where he works, which is, in Noct’s opinion, the best job he’s had so far. He doesn’t have to smile, his coworkers all have dry, deeply sarcastic senses of humor, and since it’s a college library, it has a pretty impressive selection of comics. And Ignis gets to arrange his own break schedule, which means Noct gets to mooch off of his ridiculously well-made lunches. 

Sometimes, Prompto joins them. It’s odd, really, because it looks like Ignis is always making lunch for _Prompto,_ but maybe that’s just how Ignis is. He’s always taking on more than he has to, and when Prompto compliments his cooking, Ignis’ eyes light up and his smile goes sideways and a little loose. 

If Noct weren’t so preoccupied with thoughts of Gladio reading a book about princes, old wizards, and oracular farm animals, he’d wonder why Ignis never looks that way when _he_ says something about his cooking.

Today, Noct asks Ignis if there are any more of _this Prydain stuff Gladio has, I don’t know,_ and comes back to the apartment with an arm full of texts on mythology, folklore, and the rest of what turns out to be an entire series about the main character from the first book. He sets them out on the floor in an untidy stack, puts his feet up on the coffee table, and gets to work.

 

\---

 

“What’s that, boss?” 

Gladio sets down his phone. The base of operations for the Crownsguard Security team at the Citadel is set on the fifteenth floor of one of the main spires, and since it’s so close to one of the only coffee shops in the building, Gladio’s used to having the break room to himself. Not that he _takes_ that many breaks, not after his dad gave the company over to him so he could work with President Regis without it looking like a conflict of interest. Which it still is, since he keeps stopping by every now and then to _see how the old girl is holding up, you know,_ but Gladio can’t blame him. 

Nyx Ulric, one of President Regis’ personal security guards for the morning shift, has his black jacket dangling over one shoulder as he leans over the table. 

“Not reading classified info on your phone?” he asks. Gladio scoffs.

“Nah, just looking over the President’s old campaign videos.”

Nyx gives him a puzzled look, but thankfully doesn’t comment. Gladio isn’t sure how to feel about this, really. It isn’t _prying,_ not when everything’s out on the internet for anyone to see, but it’s odd, scrolling through videos of Noctis during the campaign trail. 

The Noct in the videos doesn’t look much like the man who drapes himself over Gladio’s furniture every day like a boneless model with no sense of grace. On the screen, he’s composed, dressed in dark suits with his hair gelled back, looking at the cameras with a smile that never meets his eyes. Before Nyx came in, Gladio was looking over one of the interviews Noct made before he dropped out of the public view, sending the media into a panic.

“We hear you’re in talks to be engaged to the princess of Tenebrae,” the interviewer had said. “She’s an old friend of yours, isn’t she?”

Sitting against a row of black curtains, Noct raised a hand to his collar. “I guess. I mean, we’re friends. We get along.”

“I bet you’re pretty excited, huh?”

“Right,” Noct had said. “You know.” Gladio had paused the video there. Noct was looking off to the side of the camera, like he was searching for a cue, and his jaw was tight with tension. Now, as Nyx pulls out a tupperware container from the fridge, Gladio thinks of how Noct had laughed the night before, helpless and open, when telling a story about Prompto spilling a beer all over their friend Ignis at a club. 

“Hey, Nyx,” Gladio says. “What do you think of Noctis? You were his guard for a while, right?”

“The President’s kid?” Nyx says. “Oh, yeah. That was a rough one. Remember how he wouldn’t get out of bed after the mid-term elections?”

Gladio runs through the past few years of scheduling, tactical planning, and navigating the organized chaos of the Citadel. “Don’t think I do, actually.”

“Yeah, well, I felt bad for the guy.” Nyx shrugs and pops his lunch in the microwave. “Some people take to politics, some don’t. Sometimes we’d pick him up from a club and he’d be…” He stops, his gaze going distant, and shakes his head. “Sorry, boss. Don’t mean to gossip.”

“It’s fine,” Gladio says, and flips his phone over. He swipes past the home screen and sees Noct’s face in the video, pale and withdrawn, shoulders lowered in a defensive slouch. “My fault for asking.”

 

\---

 

Gladio comes back late, which Noct is starting to get used to. It’s true, what Gladio said at the start—The apartment _does_ get empty, sometimes. It’s too large, too clean, even though Noct is doing his best to fix that last part, and Noct is almost considering inviting Prompto over when Gladio comes through the door, bearing a to-go box that smells like roasted chicken heaven and a bag from a high end gaming store Noct is afraid to go _into_ these days. He barely sets them down on the counter before Noct is on him, tugging his tie loose with deft fingers. When he kisses the side of Gladio’s neck, spreading his palms to pull his shirt open, he can feel the rumble of laughter in his throat. 

“It’s just dinner,” Gladio says. 

“What, I’m not allowed to say hi?” Noct asks, speaking into the spot just below Gladio’s ear. He has to stand on tiptoe to reach, and Gladio obliges him by wrapping an arm around his waist and heaving him up a few inches. Noct bites down on his ear, and Gladio gasps. 

“If this is hello,” he says, as Noct gets to work unbuttoning the rest of his shirt, “I can’t wait to find out what _I missed you_ sounds like.”

“Let’s give it another two weeks, and maybe you’ll get the chance,” Noct tells him. Gladio grins, and a second hand cups Noct’s ass, holding him up as they stumble towards the bedroom. 

“Deal.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Alright, so you have to promise not to panic.”

Noct pretends to look up from one of Ignis’ suggested books on knighthood. He’s been doing a good job, he thinks, of nodding along for the past hour, occasionally turning pages, as Gladio goes through his bodyweight exercises on the living room floor. Almost subtle, really. Gladio’s pecs squeeze together as he rises into another curl-up, and Noct doesn’t even lick his lips.

“See, now I’m panicking,” Noct says, and he wonders why his voice comes out sounding more breathless than _Gladio’s._

“My little sister’s in town on spring break,” Gladio says. He pauses mid-twist, and Noct presses a thumb down on his own lower lip. He can taste salt on his tongue, and watches a drop of sweat disappear in the line of Gladio’s abs. 

“Not gonna be for too long,” Gladio’s saying, when Noct realizes that he’s been biting on the nail of his thumb.

“What?” he asks. The book has slipped down to his lap, and he feels heat rise to his face as Gladio rolls his eyes. 

“Not like I ain’t flattered,” he says, “but this is important. Iris—my sister,” he adds, at Noct’s momentary look of confusion, “is gonna be staying in the other guest room while she’s here.”

Noct tears his gaze away from Gladio’s chest long enough to look him in the eyes. “Don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he says. Gladio narrows his eyes. “No, really. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

He sits up straight, channeling Noctis Lucis Caelum, the affable and self-deprecating son of the president. The man he was for the cameras, for the press, for the time before Noct stopped caring. He flashes Gladio a practiced smile.

“See?” he says. “Respectable.”

Gladio’s quiet for a moment, one arm wrapped around his knees. “Don’t need respectable,” he says, in a strange, rough-edged voice. “Just don’t teach her any swears that’ll get back to Dad.”

Noct pulls off a sharp salute, and Gladio catches his hand on the way down, tipping him forward on his hands and knees. The book falls between Noct’s legs, skittering across the floor as he climbs over Gladio. He presses his lips to the taut skin over Gladio’s abs, and slowly drags his tongue down.

“Oh yeah,” Gladio says, as Noct hooks his fingers into his workout pants. “ _Respectable._ ”

 

\---

 

On the day Iris Amicitia is due to arrive in Insomnia, Noct comes back from the library early. One too many complaints from his superiors and an insistence from Gladio that “It’s no problem, really,” has resulted in a whole new set of black dress shirts that feel like silk and still manage to get rumpled after only ten minutes in Noct’s presence. He starts unbuttoning the collar the moment he’s out of the library, and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows by the time he gets to the apartment complex.

Only to find a young girl at the front door, sitting on a giant red suitcase. She looks up in excitement at the sound of Noct’s approach, looks him over, and returns to staring at her phone. Noct halts. Same dark hair, same light brown skin, chin a little narrow but the right jawline…

“Iris?” he asks. 

The girl glances up again. “Oh. Are you one of Gladdy’s friends from work?”

“Roommate,” Noct says. He adopts his Greeting New People voice, which he had to master early when his dad first ran for Council. “Noctis. Need any help getting in?”

“Gods, do I,” Iris says. She jumps up, grabbing the handle of her suitcase in one hand. “I wanted to surprise Gladdy by coming in early, but I forgot how _late_ he is. And Dad’s not picking us up for dinner until after _that,_ and if I… Gladdy’s pantry isn’t full of Cup Noodles again, is it?”

“Usually is,” Noct admits. He gestures to take Iris’ suitcase, but she wheels it along without any sign of difficulty. “We—Uh, he eats out a lot.”

“Sounds like him.” Iris sighs. “I guess I can wait.” 

They’re almost to the apartment when Noct, warring with the side of him that just wants to lie down and let Iris putter about in the guest room until Gladio gets back, concedes defeat. “You know,” he says, as he unlocks the front door. “There’s a pretty good burger place down the street. I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Iris grins. “I think you just made yourself a new best friend, Noctis.”

Noct and Iris order the burgers to go—Iris settles for one covered in bacon, cheese, onion rings and two different types of sauces, and they both pick at the fries on the walk back to the apartment. Iris, it turns out, is something of a genius when it comes to engineering. She tells Noct all about the felt puppets she sells online for book money, the robots she makes for class, the architects and scientists who work at the boarding school in Lestallum. Her boundless energy and black hole of a stomach reminds Noct of Prompto, a little—all she’s lacking is a closet full of spiked jackets and an addiction to hair gel. 

When Gladio opens the front door, Iris has roped Noct into being a guinea pig for her latest experiment: A massive moogle plush that is supposed to distract dangerous predators in the wild. 

“It’s infused with a pheromone that attracts most of the animals in the Leide region,” she says, as Noct holds the squeaking, shuddering doll at arm’s length. “And it has three different types of distress cries.”

“It’s definitely making _me_ distressed,” Noct says, as the moogle screeches in synthetic pain. Iris laughs and reaches for the zipper at the moogle’s neck, explaining how to turn off the mechanism.

Which is how Gladio finds them: Noct, standing with a screaming, jibbering moogle in his arms while Iris deftly decapitates it.

“Huh,” he says, as the door swings shut behind him. “I guess _you’re_ getting along.”

“Gladdy!” Iris lets the dead moogle’s head flop on its neck, and throws herself at her brother. They bump forearms, then elbows, and then Iris hops up to kiss Gladio on the cheek. She misses, bumping his jaw instead, but Gladio pretends not to notice. 

“Hope you’re hungry,” Gladio says. Iris glances warily at Noct, who winks. “Dad’s pulling out all the stops tonight. Dinner _and_ cake, because _someone_ won the science fair for the second year in a row.” He wraps an arm around Iris’ neck, and she squeaks, wriggling out of his grip. Gladio turns his grin to Noct, who smiles back faintly, unsure how to respond. Then he sees that he’s still holding the decapitated moogle, and gingerly sets it down on the couch in case it starts screaming again. 

“I’ll leave you guys to it,” he says, and Iris’ smile fades a little. “Gonna head out and see Prom.”

“Have fun,” Iris tells him, and turns back to Gladio, regaling him with her every move since the last time they’d seen each other. Noct steps around them, avoiding Gladio’s look of concern, and turns on his phone on the way out. 

Thankfully, Prompto is already out. He sends Noct a picture of the bar of The Cockatrice, a club with the kind of cringe-worthy puns in its drink menu that only someone like Ignis can appreciate. Which means that Ignis is there, too, so Prompto and Noct aren’t going to have to dance alone. 

Or, rather, _Prompto_ won’t have to dance alone. 

Noct ends up sitting at the bar, watching as Ignis bebops to the music with what has to be the worst sense of rhythm this side of the Disc, all while Prompto—poor Prompto, he tries so _hard_ to show him how it’s done—does all the work of bumping, grinding, and occasionally dragging at Ignis’ limbs to get him to _move._

Noct is fine, though. This is what he wants. 

Gladio and Iris are probably at dinner with their dad by now. Noct wonders where they ended up going, and then wonders why he’s _wondering._

Out on the dance floor, Ignis and Prompto have disappeared into the press of bodies. Noct buys another drink. 

An hour later, Noct staggers out into the dark alley behind The Cockatrice and collapses on an outdoor AC unit. The air is warm on his face, and smells vaguely like exhaust, but it’s a refreshing change from the sickly sweetness of the club. It takes a few tries for Noct to get his phone out, and a little longer to get to the right name on his contacts, but when the phone on the other end of the line is ringing, Noct is ready. He’s not even drunk. Sure, he’s doubled over his knees and staring down at the pebbled concrete at his feet, but that’s just because the world keeps tilting every time he lifts his head.

It goes to voicemail.

“Hey,” he says. The bass of the dance floor behind him is heavy and slow, like a heartbeat, and he kicks his foot against the AC unit in time. “So, uh. You know. You know, before your first campaign? When things were, when we were living in the slums ‘cause you said that would make you more relatable? And our house got broken into? And I thought, I thought, um.” This is wrong. He isn’t supposed to talk about anything _real,_ he just has to say _Sorry I missed you, talk to you in a few months,_ and leave it at that. But his traitor mouth keeps going, entirely unconnected to what’s left of his brain. “I mean, we had that fishing trip planned, and I thought, well, that’s it. Dad has to talk about crime on TV for the next three months. But we went anyways, and that was. That was nice.”

He feels heat building up behind his eyes, and the muscles in his mouth and jaw aren’t working properly. He screws his face up for a second and tries to breathe normally, to slow his heartbeat to match the pace of the club. 

“It was nice,” he says, and slams his thumb down on the _end call_ button. 

Ignis finds him ten minutes later when he steps outside for a cigarette. Noct is aware of Ignis’ warm hand on his forehead, a voice in his ear, and he tells himself that he’s being ridiculous, he definitely shouldn’t be _crying over his phone_ when he’s supposed to be out at the club with his friends. When he lives in a high-rise with a man who looks like he’s stepped out of a classical painting. Everything’s _great._ Everything’s _fine._

“Prompto’s on the way,” Ignis says, rubbing soothing circles over Noct’s back. 

“I called Dad,” Noct whispers. Ignis’ hand stops. 

“How many drinks did you have?” he asks.

“Not enough.”

Prompto shows up looking like the patron saint of gay bars, draped with beaded necklaces, face smudged with lipstick, and hair disheveled. Ignis fusses over _him_ while Prompto fusses over Noct, and Noct gets a full view of Ignis’ mouth parting slightly as he swipes a thumb over the… the marks that look suspiciously similar to the shade on Ignis’ own lips…

“Oh god,” Noct wails. “Tell me you aren’t fucking.”

“Dude, do we look like we’re fucking?” Prompto asks, which isn’t an answer. But Noctis lets himself be dragged up over Prompto and Ignis’ shoulders, and he doesn’t even object when Prompto takes his phone away. 

“I’m okay if you are, though,” Noct says, after a minute. Ignis sighs deeply. “No, really. I’m. I’m happy for you guys. You’re my best friends.” He’s crying again. He knows he has to be, because Prompto only cries when _he_ does, and Prompto’s a _wreck._

“Look, man, we’ll talk when you’re sober,” he says. 

“I’ll never be sober again,” Noct tells him, and Ignis makes a disapproving sound low in his throat. Of course he would. Ignis is, as Noct told him just a minute ago, the best. Always the best. Noct hopes that Ignis understands just how much he’s appreciated. He pats Ignis’ face gently, but his hand misses the mark and lands on his neck. 

“Love you, too, Noct,” Ignis says, and together, he and Prompto drag Noct down the streets of Insomnia and into the blissful arms of sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Noctis realizes, as he rolls over on Prompto’s couch at eleven in the morning the next day, that he’s too used to waking up to the ghosts of horrible, disastrous, gloriously fucked-up decisions. Like the night he’d accidentally told his dad that he and Luna used to write each other letters in a journal, giving Regis the incentive to go through with Luna’s mother’s idea of setting them up in the first place. Or the morning he woke up to a violet-haired man who had, after what Noct was pretty sure was at least three body shots the night before, convinced him to say the word _daddy_ unironically. Or the time he woke up in a cat costume in someone’s attic. 

This, though. This, he feels, is somehow worse.

“Your father's called you seven times, now,” Ignis says, handing Noct aspirin and a mug that says, in bubbly, cheery font, _Bae Before Bay!_ Noct peers into it and groans.

“Don’t do this to me, Specs.” Noct looks up over the cup of unsweetened coffee.

“You did this to yourself,” Ignis says, with a pitiless smile. “Drink up. You’ll feel more the thing in an hour or so.”

Noct watches Ignis and Prompto move around the apartment as he forces down the meds alongside the worst coffee he’s ever had in his life. He should probably call Gladio. But that would mean looking at his phone, which means trying to ignore however many voicemails his dad had left from his secure line at the Citadel, and then feeling like shit when he does.

“Gonna head hom--to Gladio’s,” he says, after a bit. Ignis and Prompto glance at each other like they’re speaking in code: _You tell him. No, you!_ Noct waits, stewing in misery and horrible coffee, as they debate with their eyes.

“I’ll drive you,” Ignis says.

“But we think you should call your dad,” says Prompto. “Sober.”

“Really, Prom? I thought we were friends.” The heartbroken look on Prompto’s face makes Noct feel like sinking into the floor. “Sorry.”

Ignis sighs and takes the mug from Noct’s fumbling hands. “Very well,” he says. “Up we go.”

Noct has to make Ignis stop three times on the way to Gladio’s so he can throw up on the side of the highway. He says goodbye to the burger from yesterday and half his lungs in one go, and the rest is just endless retching. By the time he makes it to the door of the apartment complex, Noct isn’t sure he wants to go in. He’s sure that the moment Gladio sees Noct, the spit-covered, lung-coughing basket-case swimming in alcohol, he’ll quietly cancel their plans to go to the high-scale movie theater next week and suggest that Noct find somewhere else to stay. 

He wouldn’t blame him, really.

Of course it’s Gladio’s day off, so Noct opens the door to find Gladio doing shirtless pushups while Iris sits on his back, reading a book aloud and cracking up at every other line. They both turn to look at him, and Noct spares a dying brain cell to admire the fact that Gladio is holding a plank position without breaking a sweat. 

“What happened to you?” Iris says.

“Went out with Prompto,” says Noct. “Don’t stop for me, I’m gonna drown myself in the shower until I feel human again.”

“Hey, hold on,” Gladio says, but Noct’s phone rings, and he can’t stop himself from wincing. Gladio watches him as he disappears around the corner. 

“Iris,” he hears Gladio say. “You wanna run down to Minnie’s? Get me whatever you want, and make sure to order the hangover special for Noct.”

“Sure!” Iris chirps. She raises her voice. “Hey, Noctis! I hope you feel better soon!”

Noct groans something back from the safety of the bathroom. He hears giggling, more whispers, and the door slamming shut. Finally, there’s a knock on the door.

“Don’t have to explain,” Gladio says, “but how okay are you? Scale of one to ten.”

“One being the lowest?”

“Yeah.”

“Negative sixteen.” Noct sits down against the tile wall. There’s a pause, then the door starts to creak inward. “No, Gladio, I look like shit--”

Gladio walks in anyways, closing the door softly behind him. He leans against the bathroom sink, looking down at Noct in silence. Waiting.

“Called Dad last night,” Noct says, when Gladio starts to shift his weight from one foot to the other. “Might’ve… left a message on his phone. At the club. A few drinks short of sober.”

“Fuck.”

Noct shrugs. That just about covers it. His phone vibrates again, and he drops it on the lid of the toilet, where it shakes and crawls towards the edge. “That’s been happening all morning.”

“What’s he saying?” Noct makes a helpless gesture towards the phone, and Gladio frowns. “You didn’t even listen to his voicemail? He listened to yours.”

Noct sits up in indignant outrage. “Weren’t you the guy telling me not to go back?”

“Back in the closet, maybe. Look, just listen. If he’s an ass about it, block his number.”

Noct groans, lunges for the phone, and swipes it on. 

“Noctis?”

“Holy shit!” Noct drops the phone on the floor, and it goes skittering across the tile. Gladio lunges forward to catch it. Noct’s dad must’ve called the moment he picked up the phone: Noct can hear his voice, faint and mildly concerned, coming out of the bottom speakers. 

“Noctis, is everything alright? Did something happen?”

Gladio hands the phone out to Noct and points to the door, mouthing, _You want me to leave?_ Noct shakes his head furiously and grabs the phone like it’s infected with a rare disease.

“H-hey, Dad,” he says, half his remaining self control bursting into flames. “Uh, sorry about last night. Uh.”

Regis’ voice sounds strained, almost panicked, like he was the night he almost lost the vote in Leide. “No, no, Noctis, that was. No. I’m glad you called. Are you… are you well?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Noct gives Gladio a frantic look, and Gladio lifts his hands in the air. “Sorry I didn’t, you know, pick up until now.”

“That’s quite alright. I’m glad you picked up at all.” There’s a sound of a short intake of breath, and Regis says, “Not that I am implying that you wouldn’t, of course.”

They sit in silence for a while. Gladio looks like he’s about to flee the bathroom anyways, and Noct reaches for him. Gladio sighs and sits down at his side, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. 

“I’d like to see you,” Regis says, and Noct almost drops the phone again. “Just to talk.”

“Oh. When?” It usually takes three months to clear up space in Regis’ schedule. It’ll give Noct plenty of time to think things over: Like how to get out of Insomnia, take on a new identity, and live off lizards in the desert for the rest of his life. 

“I may have cleared up my afternoon, just in case.”

Noct lets that sink in. For the president to change his schedule last minute like this, he has to be putting most of his cabinet into disarray. The enormity of this makes Noct feel numb. 

“Noctis?”

“Uh, yeah,” Noct says. “How about, uh, Rosa’s? They have these, these little iced cakes…”

“Sounds lovely. I’ll see you at three?”

Noct grunts. The line goes dead. 

“Right,” Gladio says, into the resounding silence. “Looks like we’ve got three hours to get you ready.”

Noct turns to Gladio, squinting up into his eyes. “What do you mean, we?”

 

\---

 

“Why hello, my son,” Iris Amicitia says, standing on a chair in the middle of Gladio’s dining room. She’s wearing one of Noct’s new suits, which isn't so much too big on her as it is too long in the arm and leg, and snaps her fingers at Gladio. “Servant boy. Bring me my wine.”

“They don’t serve wine at Rosa’s,” Gladio says. Iris frowns and claps her hands. It’s muffled by Noct’s flopping sleeves.

“Silence, servant boy.” She turns to Noct, who is sitting at the other end of the table, staring at her. “Noctis! My son! My boy. My champ. Buddy. How are you?”

“Wait,” Noct says. “Do I really have to act like Iris is my--”

“Look at it this way,” says Gladio. “No talk with your dad’s gonna be weirder than this.”

“Servant boys don’t speak, they bring wine!” Iris calls. “Now, old sport. Tell me, why did you run away from home?”

Noct suppresses a laugh. Iris is trying to steeple her fingers together, but the sleeves of the jacket keep getting in the way. “Uh, well. You wanted me to marry Lunafreya--”

“Ooh, I love Princess Luna!” Iris says. “I have a poster of her in my room.” Gladio snorts and covers his face with one hand, and Iris goes back into Dad mode. “That is, because she’s the daughter of the Queen. Who I am friends with. Because I am president. Elections. Politics. Senate houses. Blah blah blah.”

“Wow, it’s like he’s right here in the room with me,” Noct says. 

“Focus, Noctis.”

Iris flaps a sleeve, and it hits her in the face. “Why _don’t_ you want to marry Lunafreya, my chum?” she asks. “She’s like, really cool. She even did a CD, and it wasn’t super autotuned or anything.”

“She’s also gay as hell,” Noct points out. “I mean, so am I. Sure, I also like women, but I don’t like Luna. Not like that. Because she’s gay.”

“Pff!” Iris flings her head back. “Who marries for love? Think of the power, Noctis! The manors! The money! You’ll be a prince!”

Gladio jumps in, then, saying, “Not a prince, Iris. And I don’t think the president talks like a supervillain--”

“Servant. Boy.” Iris glares at him. “The wine.”

Gladio rolls his eyes and goes to the kitchen to get some fruit juice. Iris looks at Noct, and her smile, already vaguely malicious, takes on a new form of evil.

“You don’t happen to like someone else, do you?” she asks. “Son?”

Noct glances at Gladio, who is rummaging around in the fridge. “Uh.”

“Oh, you know,” Iris says. “Like a tattooed doofus named after a flower, maybe. Who you keep staring at when his back is turned.”

“What?”

“Your wine, Mr. President,” Gladio says, appearing at Iris’ shoulder with a glass of juice. She drinks it slowly, staring at Noct the whole time. Gladio walks around the table to hand him his own cup, and his hand slides up Noct’s back. Noct leans into the touch, and Iris’ eyebrows raise just a fraction. 

“You know what?” Noct says, shaking off Gladio’s hand. “I think you’re right, Gladio. I’m ready.”

“Good,” Gladio says. He leans down to whisper in Noct’s ear. “Text me if you need an out. When it’s over, I’ll have something special for you.”

Noct smiles reflexively, and Iris makes a small noise that sounds suspiciously like _aha!_ He has to admit, they have a point. No matter what happens this afternoon, no meeting with his dad will ever be as strange as _this._


	6. Chapter 6

Rosa’s cafe is easy to miss: On first glance, it looks like a small, two-story house, complete with a front garden and a rose-accented picket fence. Even regulars get sidetracked sometimes, and Noct secretly hopes that maybe his dad can’t find it, and they’ll have to talk on the phone instead. He walks through the knee-high wildflowers on the way to the door, sporting the most comfortable, well-tailored outfit he’s worn in his life. It’s black, so he thought it wouldn’t make any difference at first, but when he stood in the mirror and saw a thinner, paler, more fashionable version of President Regis looking back at him, he almost crawled into Gladio’s bed and stayed there.

Turns out Gladio can be a persistent son of a bitch when he has to be. Noct knows that he’s outside the cafe in his car, waiting on his phone in case Noct needs a quick escape, and the fact that he’s doing _that_ when he should be hanging out with his sister makes Noct’s stomach lurch. This has to go well. If it doesn’t, then he’s wasting _everyone’s_ time.

He opens the door to Rosa’s, and Regis stands up from his corner table. He’s smiling, painfully anxious, and the napkin on his table has been wrung and twisted out of shape. Noct smiles back, just as pained.

_Fuck._

 

\---

 

Two hours later, a video appears on the popular video-sharing website, Kupo-Gram. It’s shaky, clearly filmed from a cell phone, and it’s angled upward from waist-height to focus on two men sitting at a rose-patterned cafe table. One of the men is young, in his early twenties at most, and keeps crushing iced cakes in his fingers and twisting them around his plate. The other man is easily recognizable even in dressed-down day clothes: President Regis leans forward on his elbows, ignoring his food altogether as he speaks to the man before him. 

“Wouldn’t dream of forcing you, Noctis,” the president says. The video cuts off just before it reaches his eyes, but his hands are clenched tight together, and his right knee shakes under the table. The man sitting on the other side, Noctis, sighs. 

“I know, Dad.” He breaks another cake in half. “Well, maybe I didn’t. You talked about it like it was the only thing keeping the peace accord together.”

“Son.” Regis shifts as though he wants to make a gesture with his hand but can’t quite bring himself to do it. “There are other ways to symbolize peace than to make one’s children miserable. If only you’d told me, instead of shutting off…”

“I did tell you!” Noctis’ voice rises, and the camera closes up on his face. It looks like he’s trying not to cry, his mouth twisted in a grimace, shoulders hunched. “But it was like every time I came out in the open, I embarrassed you somehow. I thought I _had_ to marry Luna, to… to make up for it.”

“Noctis, no.”

Noctis covers his face in both hands and drags them down. His cheeks are a deep, patchy red. “I’m too gay for this, Dad. I’m just so… I’m so gay.”

“I thought you were bisexual?”

“Yes, but it’s a really _gay_ bisexual--” 

The video stops there. 

Ten minutes after _that,_ Kupo-Gram _explodes._ There are five second videos on loop of Noctis Caelum saying, to a club-like backbeat, “I’m too gay for this, too gay for this, t-t-t-o g-g-g-g-gaaaaay.” The words “I’m so gay” appear over the picture of him covering his face. A remix of their conversation, put to badly autotuned music, takes the internet by storm before rush hour hits. By evening, there are at least ten online stores featuring unofficial merchandise with “I’m too gay for this, Dad” on the front, and Noct’s personal social media account gains two million new followers. 

Noct’s phone, however, has been kicked under Gladio’s couch about fifteen minutes after they arrive back at the apartment, and the thick carpet of Gladio’s living room does a fantastic job of muffling the hum of notifications. 

Gladio’s _something special_ ends up being an empty apartment (“Iris is at Dad’s tonight,” he says, and Noct secretly makes a vow to get Iris her own wine cellar as soon as she turns twenty-one) and a small tray of food set out on the kitchen bar, since Gladio knows that Noct was probably too nervous to eat at Rosa’s. They get about ten bites in before Gladio pushes Noct up against the counter, hands tracing down his narrow hips, and Noct twists in his grip and sinks to his knees on the kitchen floor.

They move to the living room--Or rather, Gladio does, lifting Noct off his feet so that Noct can brace his arms on Gladio’s shoulders. Gladio leans against the wall, slowly stroking his cock, slick with come, back to hardness as Noct throws his new, ridiculously expensive clothes into a heap behind the couch. He ignores the thunk of his phone disappearing into the dark. Noct practically climbs Gladio, and Gladio obliges by lifting him again, hands secure on the underside of his thighs. 

“Oh, fuck,” Noct says. He reaches behind him to grip Gladio’s cock in fumbling fingers. He’s ridden him before, sure, but not like this. Not when the only support is Gladio’s hands holding him up. He meets Gladio’s eyes, and Gladio can see the want there, fierce and overpowering.

“Sure you don’t need prep?” Gladio asks. 

“Sure,” Noct says. He doesn’t care. He’s never wanted this more in his entire fucking life. He holds Gladio awkwardly as he’s lowered, drags the nails of his free hand over Gladio’s chest. When he feels like he’s had the bare minimum time to adjust, Noct grabs Gladio’s shoulders and lifts himself a few inches up his length.

Then Gladio takes over. 

Noct knows that he should probably be more active in bed. He’s had lovers roll their eyes at him before when he just wants to lay back and be pampered, or fucked, or moved around while he languishes in the build of pleasure. But Gladio, he doesn’t seem to mind at all. Noct’s hands slip as he clutches at Gladio’s hair, his shoulders, as his head lolls back and Gladio grins up at him, cries out Gladio’s name as he comes between them. Gladio pulls out, still hard, and turns them around so that it’s _Noct’s_ back pressed to the wall. Noct’s legs are pushed close to his chest, and Gladio fucks between his thighs, brushing his over-sensitive cock with every thrust. He comes over Noct’s chest, and when Noct’s feet finally touch the floor, he lets himself unfold slowly onto the carpet.

“Holy shit,” Noct says, and Gladio’s grin widens. “Fuck, Gladio, kiss me.”

They kiss for a few minutes, there on the floor, until the incessant vibrations in the carpet finally get to them and Noct scrambles under the couch for his phone. 

He stares at the notifications. He opens a link from Prompto, and sees his own face on a video, amid an array of artificial strobe lights. 

“Too gay for this,” the phone says, in his own voice. “Too-too-too-too gay for this.”

Noct drops the phone on the carpet, covers his face in both hands, and groans. 

Two hours and a frantic, half-sobbing call to his father reveals that unfortunately, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop the videos from spreading. It isn’t Noct’s fault, Regis says. It’s an invasion of privacy. They cut off the video before it gets to the part where Noct and Regis agree, tentatively, to meet at the Citadel more often, because reconciliation isn’t what makes headlines. No, the son of the president confirming the rumors around his departure and subsequent inclusion into the Queer nightlife of Insomnia is all anyone cares about. 

A few senators even weigh in on their social media platforms. Some applaud Noct for his “bravery.” Others point out that it’s wrong to out someone without permission, except, by talking about Noct, they’re technically outing him, too. Others claim that this is proof that Regis’ administration is slipping: How could he champion the morals of Lucis if he can’t control his own son? Noct watches the debates escalate until Gladio gently takes his phone out of his hands and suggests they both get some sleep.

“It’s over,” Noct says, as he lies on his side, curled up against Gladio. “He’s never getting re-elected now. I just… I just single-handedly ruined his career.”

“No, some assholes who don’t understand what personal space looks like thought they were being clever,” Gladio says. “And it’s not over. Lucis is pretty progressive, you know.”

“Not when you’re the son of the president,” Noct says. He waits for Gladio to counter him, to say something, but Gladio just wraps an arm around his chest and holds him close. The internet blazes on as Noct finally closes his eyes, analyzing the seconds of the video, writing thinkpieces, creating petitions and videos and gifs well into the morning.

Just after dawn, Gladio wakes Noct up by shoving a phone in his face.

“Fucking hell, Gladio,” he mutters. “Let me sleep.”

“I think you’ll want to be awake for this one,” Gladio says. He pushes the phone closer, and Noct blinks thickly, scooting back onto the pillows to get a better look. There’s a live video feed on the screen, showing the field of blue sylleblossom flowers and the stone archway that is the Tenebraean palace gardens, where the Queen does most of her official announcements to the press. Except it isn’t the Queen at the podium. It’s Lunafreya, Noct’s old penpal and childhood friend, her light blond hair immaculately coiled and white dress shining in the sunlight. She smiles, and Noct spots a woman behind her, silvery-white hair falling over her shoulders, dressed in the red uniform of Niflheim. 

“Given recent events,” Luna is saying, in the practiced, level politician’s voice that Regis never could convince Noct to use. “We have decided to push the happy news forward—”

“Oh no,” Noct says.

“Oh, yes,” says Gladio.

“And so,” Lunafreya says, with a smile that reveals nothing, “it is my pleasure to announce that Aranea Highwind will be joining the Nox Fleuret family as my wife—“

Her voice is drowned out with the frenzied shouting of reporters. Cameras flash, and Aranea and Luna exchange a look before Aranea steps out before the podium as well, wrapping an arm around Luna’s waist. 

Noct turns off the video. 

“I’m gonna owe Luna my _life,_ ” he says, quietly.

“Complimentary toaster oven at least,” Gladio agrees. 

It’s one thing for the son of the Lucian president to say that he’s gay. It’s another thing for a princess to marry a woman in the Niflheim military. Noct’s pretty sure it’s going to take about five minutes for the news media in Insomnia to drop him like a rock and turn their attention to Luna. It probably isn’t going to let up until the wedding. Maybe even _after._

Luna has, in the course of one morning, saved Noct’s skin in a way no one else could. 

Noct closes his eyes. “Gods bless Lunafreya Nox Fleuret,” he says, with all the feeling in his pathetic, over-full heart. “Queen of the gays.”


	7. Chapter 7

Noct hasn't really given much thought to when he started to fall for Gladio.

Part of him suspects that it began on the day Gladio convinced him to talk to his father, as Noct sat against the cool tile of the bathroom in a fit of misery. It began with Gladio sitting next to him, providing comfort he didn’t have to offer, a level head against the muddled shrieking in Noct’s own mind.

Or it could have started on the night a few weeks later, when Noct crawled into the apartment on his hands and knees after hitting the club with Prompto, too trashed to walk, and vomited on the ridiculously soft carpet of the living room. Gladio didn't even scowl; Just picked him up and dragged him to the bathroom, where he batted away Noct's fumbling hands in an effort to clean him off.

It could have been on the day that Noct caught Gladio working out and rolled under him while he was doing planks. Gladio had looked down on him, then, his amber eyes dark and crinkled with humor, before leaning in to peck Noctis on the nose. Something in his gaze caught Noct so off guard that he forgot why he'd moved in the first place, and it wasn't until Gladio was grinding down on him, one hand palming Noct's cock, that he pushed away the disquieting moment and gave himself to pleasure.

It could have been when Noct was invited to be a guest speaker at that year’s Insomnian Pride Parade, and Gladio had escorted him off the stage at the end of his awkward speech and pushed him through the crowd by shoving a giant rainbow flag over his head. They’d fallen into the back of the waiting van, laughing, and Gladio had forgotten himself and kissed Noct in full view of the chaffeur. Noct stormed the Citadel the next day, sure that he’d gotten Gladio fired, only to find him having a cup of coffee with Regis, who managed to give his blessing _and_ rope Noct into heading a literacy program at the same time. 

It could have been when Noct finished the series of well-worn books on Gladio’s bookshelf and bet him, over dinner, that he could name his favorite character in three tries. He named it in one, and Gladio set down his chopsticks and looked at Noct like he’d just performed a minor miracle. Their feet had bumped into each other under the table, and Gladio had reached for his hand. It could have been then.

But right now, as Noct holds up a frankly disgustingly large trout on the third day of their vacation to the mountains, he knows.

He's fallen for Gladiolus Amicitia.

"Fuck," he says, and the gasping trout in his hands flops onto the dock with a thud. He scrambles after it, but it makes a mad dash for freedom, swimming off into the dark water with one of Noct's favorite lures.

Behind him, Gladio snorts.

"Oh, laugh it up," Noct says. "That was going to be dinner."

"I stocked up back at the cabin," Gladio points out.

"Yeah, instant noodles doesn't count as _stocked._ I lived off those for years." Noct searches for a good place to cast, and pinches the line with his forefinger and thumb.

"Respool the line before it's too late," Gladio warns, and Noct twists around to find Gladio right at his back, smiling down at him fondly. Noct opens his mouth slightly, and breathes in when the other man presses a thumb to his lower lip.

"God, I love you," Noct says, without thinking.

The silence between them is absolute. Gladio's thumb is still dragging on his lip, and his face has slipped from lazy amusement to complete and utter shock. Noct feels his chest go tight.

"I mean," he stammers. "I mean I. In the sense of."

Gladio kisses him softly, slipping his hand round to cup his cheek. The fishing rod juts into his side, and he pulls back with a breathy laugh.

"Right," he says. "Me, too."

"Thought you didn't have time for a typical relationship." Noct can't help it. It's like worrying a tooth. If he doesn't push at it, he's never going to know if it's true.

"Nothing about you is typical, Noct," Gladio says, and Noct feels a warmth run through him, rooting him to the spot.

"Fuck the fish," he says. Gladio laughs. "Let's go back."

They start in the shower, Noct thrusting shallowly into Gladio's face, buckling as the larger man slides an expert tongue under the head of his cock. Gladio holds him up by the hips and takes him into his mouth, making Noct cry out and dig sharp nails into his shoulders. Then Noct lets himself be dried in the too-large terrycloth towels, follows Gladio like he's tied to him by a line, and spends a good half hour worshiping every inch of the older man's body. Gladio moans and gasps appreciatively, but Noct is careful, and he only comes once. By the end of it, Gladio is painfully hard again, and his erection swings heavy as he rolls Noct onto his hands and knees on the bed.

By the time Gladio thrusts into him the way he wants it, Noctis is already a sobbing, drooling wreck on the sheets. Gladio knows by now what this means, but he pauses anyways to run his fingers behind the soft hair at the nape of the younger man's neck.

" _Move,_ Gladio," Noct groans, trying to rock back into him. "Fuck, just..."

"I know," Gladio says, and slams into him. Noct's fingers clench on the sheets and he drags them half off the bed as Gladio fucks him senseless into the mattress. Noct comes first, hot and shuddering, and his legs tremble as Gladio follows. They stay there a minute, Gladio's length slowly going soft inside him, and when he pulls out, Noctis lets out a moan that's positively obscene.

"You're gonna kill me," Gladio says, and kisses his pliant mess of a mouth. Noct mumbles in reply and drags Gladio down with him, wrapping his legs around the larger man's thighs.

Noct isn't sure what they are, now. Boyfriends, lovers, emotionally compromised roommates with benefits. But whatever they are, whatever path they're just starting out on, all he knows is that it feels right. Right in a way little else in his life has been, so far.

"I love you," he says again, and Gladio kisses him, and the taste that lingers in his mouth is something like freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they were both invited to Luna and Aranea's wedding, where Noct was her second best man (Ravus would have probably killed someone if he wasn't the official best man, and Noct wasn't about to go there). 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you, all! This has been a fun ride. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
